[Darin Detwiler] Welcome to Spoiler Alert! I'm Dr. Darin Detwiler.
[Callin Godson-Green] I'm Callin Godson-Green.
[Darin Detwiler] And we are in.
[Callin Godson-Green] Chicago.
[Darin Detwiler] Chicago, Chicago. National Restaurant Association. It's a big show. You can't miss it. There's such a buzz around here. There's so many. big names and small names and established companies and up-and-coming companies. And we're going to be talking about all this and more with our special guest in this episode, Dennis Keith, Respro Food Safety. Welcome.
[Dennis Keith] Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
[Darin Detwiler] You're welcome. Tell us a little bit about you and about Respro Food Safety.
[Dennis Keith] So at Respro Food Safety, we create customized food safety programs for up-and-coming, rising restaurant groups that kind of need help building programs. I started in public health working for local health departments and working in restaurants also before I started working in public health. So I feel like I had all the tools needed to come back and help restaurants, especially the younger brands, build a sustainable program. as they grow. So food safety grows as they grow, which is really important right now.
[Callin Godson-Green] Did you find when you were in public health that the smaller businesses, the more novice businesses when you were going in, they just had no idea what was even expected of them. So you were correcting them, but also trying to teach them information as you went.
[Dennis Keith] Exactly. Like a lot of the younger brands, they feel like if they get food handler cards, they just follow what the basic requirement is from the health department, they'll be good. But what we really want to teach them is, you could do better than that. And you can create a program, like a quality brand standard program that's your own and not just what the health department tells you to do. But we want to build a program that's their standard as a brand. And so when I go and meet with like an owner or a founder, I'm like, well, what is your brand standard? And sometimes they're like, I'm not sure. Like, do you have a standard? Well, of course I have a standard. Okay, well, can you explain to me what your standard is? And a lot of times you kind of get this vague answer. And so what we want to do is go in and let's fine tune what that standard looks like and let's build a program around that.
[Callin Godson-Green] Yeah.
[Darin Detwiler] Well, I so appreciate the fact that we just started and you started throwing out words like sustainable, sustainability, because I find that too many times a standard, a culture, it really depends. on who's at the helm or who's there to really drive and maintain that culture or maintain that standard. So especially when you're talking about a startup, a new company, and do you want to have some sustainability of a culture of a standard? That must be a really tough lift for you and for them.
[Dennis Keith] Right. You know, in the beginning, we used to say, well, you know, we can help you with the health department and we can do an inspection like the health department. But really, you kind of get the guys like, I get people say, I don't like the health department, so why would I want you in my restaurant, right? So what we try and do is build a program that's their own standard that they put their name on, right? Like I can tell them 90% of what that should be. What's that other 10% that you care about as a brand? And so when you do that, then you create more ownership between that brand and the program itself. And you're absolutely right, because you need to get the founders, the presidents, the CEOs, the C-suite people all on board with the program. If they've bought into it, everybody else to buy into it. And so you're trying to teach them from top to bottom that this is a program that they can believe in because I try to say it's not Respro's program telling you keep your food at 41 degrees or below. This is your own standard. We're here executing a standard that we've built with your leadership. And that's why we want you to follow it. And usually when you kind of package it that way, you get more buy-in from top to bottom.
[Darin Detwiler] And that buy-in is so important. I mean, I've been in situations where a CEO will introduce me for their corporate training and say, this is so important. You need to be here. You need to listen to this. And they introduce me and then they leave the room.
[Dennis Keith] Right. I get that also. I recently met with a brand and we did a bunch of audits for them in Q1. And I'm like, I got a report for you. We need to sit down and go over this report. Like, well, yeah, okay. Well, we're going to set it up with our junior leadership manager. I'm like, okay. but don't you think the junior leadership, want to see some upper leadership easy to buy in? And so I didn't get all the upper leadership, but I didn't get the president of the company to show up. And then through that meeting, you know, I was able to explain the message to the group that this is really your standard.
[Callin Godson-Green] Yeah.
[Dennis Keith] And if you're falling short, then you're falling short on your own brands that are not my, the Respro standard. And then I go to the president, like, isn't that right? You know, so and so, like, oh yeah, that's absolutely right. So then you get the president saying, yes, that's That's right, then you got all the junior leadership that come on board with this.
[Darin Detwiler] Yeah, you kind of have to have that balance between cultivate and validate when you're going down that road. And even the idea of having those conversations, especially, I would imagine that a young company, a young startup or a junior brand, might say, why would we want to stop this work or bring these other people in? Why would we bring in finance? Why would we bring in maintenance? Why would we bring in so and so? Because it's your company mission. And everyone plays a role. And if they don't have the buy-in, then you really only have partial buy-in. Do you run into a lot of that where beyond the food safety, You're like, okay, there's some business decisions you have to make here that incorporate the food safety, but you would have to be present. You have to include these things. You have to invest in prioritizing this if you want it to be sustainable.
[Dennis Keith] Yeah, you know, I think getting in is the first hurdle. Once you get in the door, then you kind of need to take baby steps with them as they grow and kind of pick your battles, you know, as you build a program. But then as you start to create data through the program and through the audits that you're doing, through that data, then you can convince them or try to talk to them, well, maybe you should build in, because if they're going to keep growing and opening more locations, you want to explain to them, as you keep building more locations, this is where you need to make your changes, because in your other locations, we have these problems. Either it's this piece of equipment, your walk-in's too small, or you didn't work in these sort of controls. Then as they build more, then you want them to use that data to improve their operation as they're going. And so through our The auditing process through the internal auditing process that we teach them to do creates that data that they can use as they move forward and grow. So each iteration that they keep going, they're building in a better program, a better sustainable program.
[Callin Godson-Green] Better business decisions from day zero rather than day 10, you know, going backwards. Yeah, I'd say, do you find... the range of businesses that bring you in. So I'm sure you have ones that call you guys up and they're like, yeah, someone told me I should do this. So here you are. And then you have ones that are very dedicated to food safety, but they're novice. So they don't have a food safety person. So they trust you, become part of their company. Do you find that you have like the range from one extreme to the other? And what, you know, I would assume that the businesses that want you in there as a partner, food safety person and trust your opinion are easier to work with. Do you find it challenging with the ones that are just like, someone told us we need you, so can you just do your thing and then we're good to go?
[Dennis Keith] Right. So sometimes if I see pushback or if I don't see a lot of buy-in, I may not work with that brand. Like I don't work with every brand that... Yeah. Because sometimes you find an owner that just wants to use us as a sort of a against their managers, they want to take bonuses away. So if I see sort of this animosity or sort of this bad relationship building, then I may cut that contract. And I've done that in the past. But what we really want to do is from small, from big to small, they're going to have different levels of food safety built in the program. They may have a full-time food safety person, they may not. What's the threat? What we see is what is that threshold on when they actually spend the money for that full-time person? Because it's a big expense. So we work with a lot of brands that are within that process and what we try to do is fill that gap. So the services we provide are anywhere from a full suite of services where we help them with things like if a customer calls and says I get sick near a restaurant. Sometimes that's true, sometimes that's not true. In my experience, the majority of them are probably not true. But we actually try to do, like I actually interview those complainants and I actually try to help them try and figure out, well, let's try and figure out where maybe you gotten sick. And I don't try and say it wasn't for my client's restaurant, but if you had diarrhea and vomiting right out of coming out of the restaurant, it probably came from somewhere else, especially if you don't have any other complaints at this restaurant. So let's kind of talk about.
[Darin Detwiler] Hold on, that note, I just recently saw a television show and in this show they had a catered lunch and like immediately. People were all sick and vomiting. Not all of them are vomiting and sick and you have a problem. Yes, I'm like, okay, come on, you skipped a couple steps here. You've made a lot of steps here.
[Callin Godson-Green] Listen, you only have 30 minutes for this show.
[Dennis Keith] I know, But 2 hours later, you have multiple cases and yes, you have a problem. Yes, but if you have one case. and it's a very quick onset of symptoms, then it's possible. It's possible it could be another source, right?
[Callin Godson-Green] It's funny that people never blame their own kitchen as well. You know, it's always, what food did you eat?
[Dennis Keith] That's part of the point, though, is not only working with the client, but also working with these customers on helping them through that process that they may not understand the facts. Right? We want to go out the facts. And we don't go away with any assumptions. Like, really, we need to know if we have a problem, right? And so we're going to help them with that problem. So Some organizations don't have that ability, those services to provide that. They don't know what to do, right? So we're going to help them through that process. But there's other organizations that have more infrastructure in place that do have the ability to handle those. They may only call me when we know we have a problem, right? And then I can also help them with that. Okay, well, let's, we're going to do our, you know, let's see, we're going to do the epidemiology on this outbreak so we can figure out what the problem is and we're going to fix it, right? But hopefully through our auditing process and the program we have in place, we're not going to have that problem. So far we haven't had that problem. So back to that point about different levels of where these brands are, we're going to fill the gap of whatever they need. And because of that reason, I really feel like we're the only firm out there that provides those services. If I look at all the other competitors out there, no one provides the services we provide. Hopefully if we get a brand it's really young, maybe they have 10 or 20 units, but they have grand ambitions, they have investment money. We're going to come in at that infant stage when no one else is talking to them about food safety. We're going to help them build that program early on so that when they get to the 100, 200 stores, they have a very robust, comprehensive program already in place.
[Darin Detwiler] Well, it must be strange too, because, you know, 30 years ago, you have one big event and it captures the national attention on the news. Now it's like.
[Dennis Keith] I don't know, do we even go a week without hearing in the news about some kind of a newsletter that I capture all those and I put them in a newsletter, so my clients, Well, this restaurant had an outbreak, this restaurant had an outbreak.
[Callin Godson-Green] And how easy it is for you to get that information, so your customers are then like, Oh, God, like what's you know? what's stopping us from being just like on this list that you can get immediately?
[Darin Detwiler] Well, even my local newspaper online, they're like, here's the restaurants that were closed last week, and it's always because of, rodents or...
[Dennis Keith] Restaurant inspections, yeah. Like that's popping up into feeds now based on the counties and these restaurants were closed or even a news organization wanting to do like a dirty dining report. I think Phoenix has one that they do weekly. that you do not want to be on.
[Callin Godson-Green] Yeah.
[Darin Detwiler] Well, it's a good, I mean, a finger on the pulse of the culture from the consumer's perspective of people want information and people want to have, these restaurants, these facilities, not only held accountable, but take the initiative and prevent this in the 1st place. Right. It can be done. We see it all the time, especially with services like yours, with Respro being able to, Respro Food Safety being able to help not just feel the cap, but guide some of these companies in terms of this is how you do it. Right. Yeah, exactly. Excellent. Well, Dennis Keith, thank you so very much for talking with us. I don't know how many companies are going to watch this and go, wow, why haven't we been talking with him all along?
[Dennis Keith] Well, they need to go to Resprofoodsafety.com and look at our website. They'll have all of our services. They can e-mail me at dennis at resprofoodsafety.com. So I'm happy to work with anybody and help them. We all even come visit their restaurants for free.
[Callin Godson-Green] Nice.
[Dennis Keith] And lay out a program for free. And because every brand that we've worked with has benefited big or small from our services.
[Darin Detwiler] That's great. It must be very satisfying and fulfilling.
[Dennis Keith] It is. It is very fulfilling. Yes, I'm very satisfied. So we're we want to keep growing. We want to keep adding more brands. So that's why I'm here at this show.
[Darin Detwiler] Well, thank you very much, Ness.
[Dennis Keith] Thank you. I appreciate it.
[Callin Godson-Green] Enjoy the rest of the show.
